Three Way Road Split
by DarkBlaziken
Summary: FE7. Three paths. Three assassins. Three very different lives. Road Three: of Truth and Lies. Complete.
1. Road One: of Control and Confinement

A/N: Well, finally, an assassin tribute! Yes, I know the characters I put are only Matt and Jaffar, but I'm doing Legault as well! It's an assassin tribute for a reason. Well, for MapleStory players, the title may seem familiar... (Pig Beach?)

I'm doing something controversial for Jaffar and Matt, I hope...

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Three-Way Road Split

_Road One: of Control and Confinement_

Even as I brought my blade down, I knew that I did not want to kill her.

But who am I to decide what I do? I have been dead, dead the moment was born. All my life, I have been but a tool, a tool trained to kill without question, to obey every command given to me.

I watched silently as she gasped for breath, blood spouting from her neck. With great difficulty she managed to form a word, someone's name, before she collapsed onto the floor, and moved no more.

Deep down, do I not feel regret, do I not feel guilt, do I not feel remorse? I do. I am human. I have emotions. It is just that they have been suppressed, confined for so long that any outward expression of my emotions has long since faded away. But I do feel. I am not the cold-blooded killer, that so many claims I am.

I do not control my own actions. Others do. Sometimes, I wonder if I really am human, or some bizarre puppet of others. But I really do not have a choice. It was a matter of obedience or torture. You may laugh at me and say I am cowardly. You may be right. But you have never seen my childhood. It was worse than anything you could possibly imagine. It you had had such a childhood, you too would have thought it wiser to comply with instructions.

Ephidel comes over and praises my skill. It had been he who had ordered the kill. I was controlled by a morph, by a puppet. Am I, then, less than a puppet? But I was not to ask. I had long been taught not to question, not to talk back, but only to obey.

"Take this woman's corpse and leave it in the forest. Let is serve as a warning to those fools." It was another order. Almost automatically, I picked her limp form up and went off into the forest, the misty world ahead.

Her body was still warm, but the heat was draining away fast. My conscience screamed at me to at least give her a proper burial, but I just moved on, quite technically. My mind and my body were separate contingents since a very long time ago. I had betrayed my conscience too often for it to affect me greatly. Still, I could feel the twinge of guilt nagging at me, but I ignored it and went on.

The mist was exceptionally thick today. It cast a haunting shroud over everything it loomed over. Branches waved accusingly at me. Finally, I found a tall yew tree, conspicuous enough even through the mist.

Here I set her down, and arranged her limbs such that she could have been leaning against the tree. I carefully concealed the wound and the bloodstains with her cloak. She could have just fallen asleep, if not for the fact that she was deathly pale.

That was it. Mission accomplished. However, I gained no satisfaction from it, none at all. I had merely taken the life of yet another person, merely moved one step further from being human, and a step closer to being the feared and emotionless Angel of Death.

Silently, I walked back, alone, through the mist. The path ahead of me was foggy, uncertain. Would that be my life as well? Would I just stray further and further away from the bonds of humanity, until I no longer feel anything anymore, until all that remains of me is a soulless, empty shell? Would I just remain confined behind this unseen curse for eternity?

I could hear them approaching the body. I sped up a little. Soon, they would discover that another of their allies have fallen…how would they react then? Surely they would want revenge on the murderer. The murderer probably deserves it too, I thought sardonically. But they would never succeed…for if they did, then I would probably have died a million times before. And I am dead, anyway…or as close to death as a living person can be.

Perhaps, one day, I would change. Perhaps I would become human once again. Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to shrug off the manacles of confinement and escape from this prison of control. One day, I hope I will, for the first time in my life, live.

But for now, all that is ahead of me remains a murky unknown.

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Well, hope you liked it:) Review if you liked it!


	2. Road Two: of Loyalty and Betrayal

A/N: back! haha sorry for not posting for so long, didn't have the time. Okay I know it's really short, but I hope you'll like it.

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Three-Way Road Split

_Road Two: of Loyalty and Betrayal_

I stared, disbelievingly, at the name scrawled on the piece of parchment.

Aesha.

It couldn't be, it just couldn't be…how could she have betrayed the Black Fang?

Keeping my face as void of emotion as possible, I asked Denning in a would-be casual voice, "Are you sure this is the right person?"

Denning stared back blankly at me with his unseeing eyes and repeated mechanically, "You are to eliminate the person written on that slip. There will be consequences if you do not." He gave no further elaboration. Instead, he teleported, vaporizing instantly on the spot as though he was merely a projected animation, allowing me no further chance to pester him.

_There wouldn't have been a point in that anyway,_ I thought bitterly as I paced up and down the damp, endless corridor. Denning seemed incapable of any thought, almost like a mere empty shell manipulated by those of higher order in the Fang to pass down commands. It was this particular quality that made him seem…inhuman. In fact, the new members added to the Fang all had a strange quality about them, this inhuman aura.

Over the past year, the Black Fang had undergone drastic change, change so great that I could hardly recognize this organization I had called home for as long as I could remember. Assassination targets became more for a mercenary motive than a good cause, going against the very creed that held the Fang as one family. Harsh rules were set down, and new members, each more impossibly ruthless than the next, were slowly introduced. Rumours spread like wildfire, rumours that Brendan Reed was no longer in power, that some greater mastermind had taken over. But none of these rumours lasted for very long, for whoever was caught spreading them was eliminated under the name of disloyalty to the Fang. I knew, for I was the one who saw to their deaths. I had always been the "cleaner" in the Fang, destroying whoever was guilty of betraying the Fang. My survival in the Fang was a simple matter of kill or be killed.

I stared at the name again. The choices ahead of me were clear: betray my friend, or betray the Fang. If it were any other person, to betray the Fang would be absolutely ridiculous, and I would not have thought twice about my decision. Who would if their life is at stake?

But Aesha…?

To start with, she was the last person I would suspect of having anything against the Fang. She was a fiercely loyal member as well as a friend, willing to give up her life for them—something I have always admired in her, but never had the guts to follow. And, on top of that, she had saved my life—twice, both times risking her life for my safety. I owed my life to her. Perhaps I had no honour to speak of already, but it was poor repayment to kill the person who had saved you, and even more despicable to kill your friend.

_Perhaps it was time to return you borrowed life_, I thought sardonically. _You know your conscience will haunt you for eternity if you kill her._

But if I don't?

That meant betraying the Fang, my second home, my _only_ home. Wouldn't betraying your family be worse than betraying a friend?

Suddenly, it hit me.

This was no longer a matter of Aesha's loyalty.

It was a test of _mine_.

I stared aimlessly at a burning candle. Wax trickled down steadily like teardrops. The flame consumed everything, slowly devouring every passing second with malice.

Time was running short. I had to make a decision, and fast.

I held the parchment up, my hand suspended hesitantly over the fire. _Friend or family_? That questing popped up again. The fire burned higher, merrier, taunting me to feed it that piece of parchment, to feed it my life.

I gave in.

The parchment, but not my life.

I watched the small slip curl up into a ball of fire. The tongue of the flame shot higher and higher, until all that remained was a small pile of ashes, cold, grey and lifeless.

The Hurricane no longer exists. The fire had destroyed everything, destroyed what was the deadly destroyer.

I had made my decision.

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Up next, last but definitely not least, Matthew! As I've always said, comments are always appreciated but not a necessity.


	3. Road Three: of Truth and Lies

A/N: well, finally, the third and final chapter to complete the tribute! And to Matthew! Yay! I have a feeling it wasn't as well done as the previous two, but all the same...the problem is, I put a HUGE restriction on my language and expression this time, since...well, you'll find out.

I actually put a lot of things in this chapter, though it seems like I didn't. (In fact I wanted to say much more in this than the other two chapters!) And that's due to said restriction again._

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_Road Three: of Truth and Lies_

_Slap._

The impact of the blow was so great, I nearly lost my balance. I felt the side of my face grow hot. Staring up defiantly at my father, I shouted, "But you told me the patient was going to die! What was wrong with telling him the truth?"

Another sharp blow.

Now both my cheeks were throbbing with pain, with pain I knew I did not deserve. I was shaking with anger and resentment. It was becoming increasingly hard for me not to tackle the hateful person in front of me. My hands clenched involuntarily by my side, then unclenched.

"Don't you talk back to an adult! And _look at me_ when I am speaking to you." He lifted my chin up with unnecessary force, and I had to look into those ugly, bloodshot blue eyes. He took a deep breath. "Matthew, next time will you stop acting on your own accord? Being an apprentice means you_ have_ to listen to whatever I say. Don't do anything unless you're told to do so. Do you understand?"

I would dearly have loved to answer "no", but I caught myself just in time. "Yes," I answered monotonously, but before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "But Dad, why did you tell the patient it was only a minor cold? Aren't you lying? And you've always told me that doctors need to be honest." Try as I might, I could not keep the accusatory tone out of my voice.

He raised his hand as thought to hit me again, but he thought better of it and ran it through his sandy brown hair. "You're a bit young to understand, Matthew…"

"Try me," I persisted.

"It was…a white lie. Basically, a lie told so as not to harm others' feelings. The crucial thing for patients to recover from deadly diseases is hope. It would be better if that patient did not know of his own condition."

"But aren't all lies told so as not to harm other's feelings? And why shouldn't the patient want to know what happened to him? You mean he would rather believe in a lie?" I probed. _And you wouldn't have hit me if that was really your purpose in lying, _I thought. _You were just angry that I scared away your patient._

"No…you're too young to understand. I'll explain more when you become a real apprentice, at ten. Now, off you go!" he ruffled my hair. _No way, _I thought disgustedly. _There's no way I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up. Not when they're all frauds and hypocrites._

I was eight then.

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The first rays of the sun filtered to the earth, casting a golden hue over everything. The village was bathed in the golden light, making the place seem surreal, fairy-tale like, as though it was a painting come to life.

I stared back longingly, almost unwilling to leave. After all, this _was_ my home.

But I knew I had to. I could not stay any longer, lest I be condemned to study medicine for life. That thought alone was enough to drive me away, far from this suburban village of Ostia and to the vast world ahead of me.

But just what would Tom and Elisa Zephyrion do if they woke up and found their ten-year-old son missing? My father wouldn't have cared less. My mother would probably be worried to no end, but that could not be helped. Either ways, I had left a note explaining that I had decided to travel around the world and pursue the study of medicine elsewhere.

Of course this was a complete lie, but I had convinced myself that it was a "white lie", so as my father put it. Still, I could not help but feel a twinge of uneasiness every time I recalled the letter.

The sun had peeked out of the horizon, illuminating the pathway. I took a tentative step forward. The warmth was inviting, reassuring. With a last glance at my home, still partly in the shadows, I turned around and strode confidently towards the light.

After all, why bother telling the truth when all people choose to believe in are lies anyway?

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Complete! Well, hope you liked it. And yes, you guessed the restriction, it's age. I know i might have lapsed into language too profound for an eight/ten-year-old at times, but I can't help it. Comments appreciated, but not mandatory. (I'm not the 'review PLZ' kind of author. but reviews are still helpful)


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